Today's news
(Potpourri) This weblog will be shutting down until Monday, December 29th, allowing me a rare break from my online duties. Before that happens, though, let's take one last look at the latest news:

• The message board on AnimeOnDVD.com contains what may be further evidence that Studio Ironcat is well on its way to being the first major casualty of the manga boom -- the company has apparently just cancelled solicitations on a horse-choking thirty-four comics softcovers. (Thanks to Adam for the link.) Speaking of manga, Franklin Harris and Shawn Fumo both note that Random House imprint Del Rey recently opened the manga section of its website.

• Reuters has a report on the surprisingly robust sales of Gary Larson's mammoth, two-volume collection of his daily panel, The Far Side. The book has gone so far as to appear on The New York Times bestseller list -- not bad for a $135 collection.

• Australia's Sydney Morning Herald takes a look at the small German town of Landau, which has begun an advertising campaign to explain the world that is was 19th-century editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast (who was born in Landau) who created Santa Claus, rather than the Coca-Cola Company as is commonly believed.

• Mike Kin, ombudsman for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (temporary link), defends political cartoonist Mike Luckovich against reader outrage over a cartoon which they felt went too far in criticising President Bush's alleged refusal to attend funerals for soldiers slain in Iraq. (Link via Jim Romenesko.)

• California newspaper The San Mateo Daily Journal covers a "sneak preview" recently held by the local library for its new graphic novel collection, destined for placement in the library's teen lounge. I've pretty much told you everything you need to know from the article, but it's still nice to see libraries continue to embrace comics.

• Colby Cosh looks at Twist v. McFarlane for Canadian newspaper The National Post.

• Last Saturday, The Guardian's Kate Figes spoke to five publishers about books they felt should've gotten more attention in the United Kingdom. Dan Franklin leads off the list with his nomination of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. (Link via Jessa Crispin.)

• The Wall Street Journal profiles Fred Harman, creator of the classic comic strip Red Ryder.

• Tokyopop's "marcom manager," Kristien Brada-Thompson, sells the fans on her company at The Pulse. "Marcom"? Oh, "marketing communications" -- thank you, John Jakala. (Jakala correctly points out that in the course of the interview, Ms. Brada-Thompson lists a number of markets in which Tokyopop looks forward to continued expansion in 2004, but leaves one out. Can you guess which one?)

• Silver Bullet Comics' Tim O'Shea speaks with Steven T. Seagle and Mike Allred about their new, oddball-format comic Vertical.

• Here's part three of Mike Whybark's interview with Craig Thompson.

• Writing for Kansas newspaper The Baldwin City Signal, Jeff Myrick profiles local cartoonist Ande Parks about his new graphic novel, Union Station, which details the true story of a 1930s attempt to free a criminal being transported between prisons. (Warning: there are spoilers in this article.)

• Associated Press writer Olivia Bartlett interviews veteran genre comics cartoonist Norm Breyfogle, in a story found at MLive.com.

• Ed Brubaker spent an entire day arm-wrestling comics fans, and all he got was this Newsarama essay.

• Freely acknowledging his inability to produce some authoritative "best of 2003" list, Jim Henley instead elects to describe the best of what he read in 2003. Here's another such list from Jason Marcy.

• On the other hand, Movie Poop Shoot's Chris Allen denies attempting to write some authoritative "best of 2003" list, then proceeds to do just that in comprehensive detail. Given the introductory paragraphs, the key to writing authoritative "best of 2003" lists seems to be gobbling 'shrooms by the handful before you begin. Hey, it worked for Mojo Nixon...

• Graeme McMillan nails Top Cow editor-in-chief Jim McLauchlin on opportunistic marketing practices -- mercilessly and with deadpan wit -- and he does it in under seventy words. That's gotta be a new record.

• Chris Puzak advocates the embrace of manga-sized formats by Western graphic-novel publishers.

• Want to know why I use the term "art comics" so often? Because the term "indy comics" has been debased to the point where it basically means "anything that isn't published by Marvel or DC." Did you know that Transformers/GI Joe #2 is an indy comic?

• Sometimes I worry for Alternative Press publisher Jeff Mason's sanity, I really do.

• Your homoerotic Marvel superhero image for the day.

Finally, I'd like to offer the following corrections to J.P. Dorigo's list of 2003's worst in comics:

• No matter how interminably long it took to get to the smashing, Ang Lee's Hulk film is fucking cinematic genius compared to the woefully inept Daredevil, to say nothing of the sheer embarrassment that the adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen brought to everyone associated with it.

• Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's The Dark Knight Strikes Again was one of the best superhero comics released in 2003 -- certainly better than anything Brian Bendis or Mark Millar wrote this year.

• In regard to New X-Men: it's just you.

• Given that Dorigo sings the praises of Gail Simone's writing on Agent X, it's a bit odd that the cover used to illustrate it is from Evan Dorkin's very entertaining two-issue run as writer for the series.

• I'm not a fan of Bendis and Hitch's series The Ultimates, but nonetheless: you know why good comics often appear on the stands on a less-than-monthly schedule? Because it takes longer than a month to make them and do a good job with it. Stop whining.

• We are not "all hurting" because CrossGen is hurting.

Have a nice holiday, and I'll see you back here on Monday.
Posted @ 3:10 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Today's news
(Potpourri) I really hate to keep doing this, but remember that survey of reader reactions to two prior essays that I'd promised on Friday? Well, my activities over the weekend wound up completely throwing me off schedule, and by the time I finally sat down to write, I barely had time to gather links. At this point I won't have it done until next Monday -- yes, I am in fact a jackass, thanks for asking. In the meantime, here's what happened over the weekend in the world of comics and cartooning:

• Fumetti.org's Gianfranco Goria is reporting the death last Saturday of Argentinian cartoonist and animator Horacio Saavedra at the age of 50. In addition to illustrating such Spanish-language titles as Condorito, Saavedra also did a respectable amount of work for DC Comics' Looney Toons line.

• It's only vaguely comics-related, but The Arizona Republic carries a report (originally from The New York Times) on the death of Harold Von Braunhut late last November. Von Braunhut's big contribution to comics? Sea Monkeys, those once-ubiquitous critters advertised in comic books.

• ICv2 checks in with its analysis of Diamond Distributors' November sales to the Direct Market. According to their calculations -- which Newsarama should be along shortly to contradict -- only six titles cracked the 100,000-copy mark, as compared to thirteen the previous month. Note that once again, the top-selling titles are "special event" miniseries, and that without them the numbers would look even less impressive.

• Association of American Editorial Cartoonists treasurer Cullum Rogers disagrees with a figure found in last week's Chicago Reader article, which claimed that there were once 200 editorial cartoonists working for American newspapers, and takes to Daryl Cagle's weblog to explain why. (There are no permalinks in Cagle's blog, but the essay is currently the topmost feature, dated "December 20, 2003." The Reader article in question is helpfully reprinted below it, which is good, since it'll disappear from the free section of the alt-weekly's website in a few days.)

• Baltimore Sun columnist Gregory Kane recommends comics as a tool to sell literacy to children.

• The Sydney Morning Herald names cartoonist Bruce Petty one of the ten most important Australians of all time.

• Daniel Epstein conducts a lengthy and fascinating interview with Louis Riel author Chester Brown for Newsarama.

• Mike Whybark is serializing his recent conversation with Blankets creator Craig Thompson in nine daily installments on his weblog, and the first two parts are online as of this writing (part one, part two). While we're on the subject: Stephen Burt reviews Blankets for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

• Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell takes part in a webchat hosted by The Washington Post (registration required).

• The Tennessean profiles Eric Powell, creator of the Dark Horse series The Goon.

• Variety.com comics weblogger Jevon Phillips conducts a short interview with Jeff Mariotte, the writer behind IDW Publishing's latest attempt to sell comics not involving superheroes to the Direct Market, CSI: Miami.

• Dilbert creator Scott Adams describes his journey towards cartoon superstardom for The New York Times (registration required).

• Also at The New York Times (registration still required), critic Richard Woodward examines the comic-strip work of abstract expressionist painter Ad Reinhardt, who created satirical cartoons in the 1940s and '50s for ArtNews and the liberal newspaper PM. (Link via Egon.)

• The Guardian's Nicholas Lezard takes a look at The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Volume Two, and declares it to have improved with age.

• The Honolulu Star-Bulletin's Gary C.W. Chun examines The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, a new restrospective coffee-table book by Arlen Schumer.

• With the end of the year fast approaching, it's once again time for the folks at Ninth Art to throw brickbats at the comic-book industry. Kicking things off, Paul O'Brien looks back upon 2003 as the year that manga made the rest of the industry look pathetic. Meanwhile, the Committee for the Prevention of Sequential Mediocrity convenes for part one of a two-part look at the worst that genre comics had to offer this year.

• Fred Hembeck offers a fond appreciation of writer Fred Toole and artist Al Wiseman, the two men primarily responsible for the classic Dennis the Menace comic books published in 1950s America. (There are no permalinks on Hembeck's weblog either, but it's currently the topmost item, dated "December 21st, 2003.)

• Sean Collins continues his assault on The Comics Journal's news section.

• Shawn Fumo reprints the relevant bits from this Newsarama thread, in which someone named Tivome explains which rights Japanese manga creators do and do not have over the comics they produce.

• The year-end reviews continue, as David Allen Jones lists his favorite genre comics of 2003.

• This just in: the group comics weblog Four Color Hell swears it isn't dead yet.

• In his latest essay for Newsarama, Michael Sangiacomo makes the absurd claim that the new artist on Catwoman is better than the previous artists because he draws in a "realistic" style, while those that had come before used a cartoonier line -- and cartoony art is less true to the spirit of comics or something, don'tcha know. Newsarama readers lambaste him in the comments below, but that's nothing: in his weblog, Alan David Doane hands Sangiacomo his head in one of the funniest satirical essays I've read all month.

• Can you spot the flawed logic in this press release for a "best-selling" comic?

Finally, congratulations to Kevin Moore, who I am reliably informed is the proud father of a new-born son, Owen Robert Moore. Congratulations also to Darren Shrubsole, the editor of LinkMachineGo, for earning the "Special Judges award" in The Guardian's 2003 British blog awards.
Posted @ 4:55 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

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